WvW and it's problems, a complete list

Comments

@iKeostuKen.2738 said:
I would like to see the removal or down tonage of Ferocity. As well as a range nerf on retaliation to only effect melee attacks both added to the list. Getting hit from across the map cause some shmoe with retal decided to step on one of my traps is very unrewarding and randomly puts me in combat.

@iKeostuKen.2738 said:
I would like to see the removal or down tonage of Ferocity. As well as a range nerf on retaliation to only effect melee attacks both added to the list. Getting hit from across the map cause some shmoe with retal decided to step on one of my traps is very unrewarding and randomly puts me in combat.

Ha. I could get behind a retaliation rebalance:

That's pretty awful, imo you should prolly only be able to be damaged by retal twice/second or similar or retal could simply be removed and replaced with some other boon. It doesn't really provide much to the game imo. Yet I didn't think of it while writing the original post.

@iKeostuKen.2738 said:
I would like to see the removal or down tonage of Ferocity. As well as a range nerf on retaliation to only effect melee attacks both added to the list. Getting hit from across the map cause some shmoe with retal decided to step on one of my traps is very unrewarding and randomly puts me in combat.

Ha. I could get behind a retaliation rebalance:

That's absolutely disgusting. And I thought staff eles were having bad time with retal...

Deso's favorite FROG
Master of afk and kiting
The God of Pips and Gud Deeps
Froggo himself

@iKeostuKen.2738 said:
I would like to see the removal or down tonage of Ferocity. As well as a range nerf on retaliation to only effect melee attacks both added to the list. Getting hit from across the map cause some shmoe with retal decided to step on one of my traps is very unrewarding and randomly puts me in combat.

Ha. I could get behind a retaliation rebalance:

Had to watch that a few times. Mostly for the song! But noticed that it was all retaliation damage, that completely blows .-. Thought barrage rangers were the ones affected most in these situations. But thats just completely unfair lol.

WvW Problems-->The players
1.1 My living story build, class, and tactics work perfectly fine. The NPCs told me I was the greatest commander of all. I defeated mordremoth, balthazar, and held the line from the undead entering the ring and saved the world AGAIN!! The olmakan and sunspear will back me up, but WvWers keep telling me I'm kitten! -->Please fix anet

Spectre [VII] - Wood League Champion. Making "fight guilds" stack on higher tiers since 2013.
Michelin rated WvW guild since 2015. The gold standard. Never transferred, never reformed, adapting and reloading with or without Anet.

This was mentioned multiple times by multiple people in the thread, and I didn't add it cause I honestly just forgot about it while writing the original post. I now decided to added it to the original post due to the sheer "braindead" of retal and how the counterplay is don't attack (which everyone can figure out isn't a valid option)

There is a lot of opinion going on the OP post so I will just leave the majority as an "I disagree".

Moving on:

Point 1.1
Your solution here is pretty much stop playing GW2 and play a MMo released on the years 2000~2007.
The mix of mobility on the gameplay is the only reason gameplay here is good.
Can't kill a class due to disengaging and exercise of futility? Sorry man that's your opinion there. Your opinion of conditions of victory or defeat, that is.

Point 1.2
I can't help but laugh when I read people making rational arguments about how stealth is bad. Perhaps the most rational a person is the most problem they have with things they can't see.
I don't have anything to add here. This is again a matter of opinion. Some people learned to deal with it, some doesn't.

Point 1.3
I can relate that the high burst and active defenses on some classes is something hard to deal with it. But since when Hit&Run tactics are considered an "issue"?
I can't help but read this and think you are playing the wrong game. Or perhaps you have trouble accepting strategies different than yours.

Point 1.4
I hate ranged damage as well. But all maps were made taking kitting and ranged damage in consideration. A single tree in the way can turn any ranged damage from 20k to zero.
The unblockable part ins clearly a reference to DE.
That can't be helped since the OP is playing an class that's hard countered for.

Point 1.5
I can relate.
I could disagree on a few points but I won't disagree that the damage is unhealthy on most classes nowadays.
Or specifically, "YOLO Build" are to common.

Point 2.0 in a general way
I agree that ANET doesn't seen to give the game proper methods to deal with the Zerg issue.

Point 2.1
That's a game engine limitation.

Point 2.2
Downed state is a mechanics that's bad with it and worse without it.
Downed state is the only thing that actually stops the PvP to go in a straight full burst direction.
The burst/mobility "Issue" you pointed on point 1 would be even worse if the downed state were to be removed.

It MUST be tweaked for WvW tough. Perhaps making players die faster on downed state? Adding a cooldown time to be ressed? Make the Ress debuff stronger?

Point 2.3
Again, opinion.
Tough I am not surprised someone that complained about mobility and burst plays Necro.
I recommend you playing, and I mean a few hundred hours each, other classes and open your mind a little.

Point 2.4
Classes to support itself in combat like that is one of the design decisions of GW2.
You can make your support more efficient by investing on concentration and healing power, but the skills are always there.
Drawing a line is also bad because Gw2 is not a Trinity game. In the myriad of choices, there is no place to draw a line.

Point 3.1
Boon corruption says hi.

Point 3.2
Access to stability, stun breakers and Condition clean is one of the many differences between classes and its intentional that some classes have less of some than others.
Also condi meta was terrible.
And yes, I agree that Firebrands AoE condi cleanse pretty much almost make Condi damage useless outside small skirmishes.

Point 3.3
I disagree in this point entirely.
Of the majority of games in the market, GW2 Stunbreaker system is one of the best.
The problem is that you are playing a class with bad access to Stun breakers. Warriors and Thieves for example, don't have a care in the world for CC.

TL:DR
I agree in the part that we hate zergs.
I agree that stacking too many players, like supports, in a zerg makes everything run out of control.
I disagree that the current burst meta is bad or that mobility mechanics. Its just a different way to engage on PvP and will prolly change in the future either way.
I agree that damage across the board is absurd. But mostly because the excessive amount of passive and active defenses are making "Yolo" Builds viable. Wich until now wasn't actually possible.

OP should really play other classes besides Scourge tough. It limits your opinion a lot. Gameplay experience changes a lot from class to class and you can't change the game in the visions of a single class.

There are a lot of things that are over the top in WvW when they are stacked together with multiple people. This causing the effects to drastically overpowered. Sadly tinkering with too many things will probably cause WvW to be unplayable for most people.

There are certain things that need to go though. Resistance needs to be outright removed; there should be no boon that completely mitigates an entire damage type for an entire fight (this often happens). Reflects need to be removed or drastically reduce their up-time to no more than 1s. Again, much like resistance, reflects can often completely eradicate damage from classes using ranged for an entire fight. Retaliation should go or be drastically reduced, no way someone should drop an aoe and simply kill themselves by standing there. Power and condition damage should both be removed off any gear that contains toughness and vitality. It's often talked about just how bad dire and trailblazer is, but power on this gear is just a big an offender. You have to ask yourself the question why should someone who has high power, along with toughness and vitality hit just as hard (or harder) than a zerker player can hit them.

@Israel.7056 said:
People are going to bring minstrel chronos and firebrands even if retal is entirely removed from the game.

I didn't say they wouldn't but it'd be a start by tuning down retaliation damage; it's one thing to have a tanky comp, it's quite another to be passively punishing glass players who, in many cases, take more damage through retal than they themselves put out, and for such little effort. So I have to wonder what it is you're exactly disagreeing with besides a point I didn't make?

@Israel.7056 said:
People are going to bring minstrel chronos and firebrands even if retal is entirely removed from the game.

I didn't say they wouldn't but it'd be a start by tuning down retaliation damage; it's one thing to have a tanky comp, it's quite another to be passively punishing glass players who, as it stands, take more damage through retaliation than they themselves put out, and for such little effort. So I have to wonder what it is you're exactly disagreeing with besides a point I didn't make?

I'm disagreeing with the idea that retal disproportionately rewards people running tanky builds or that toning down retal would somehow discourage the use of Minstrel Chronos and Firebrands. It's my understanding that retal damage has a base damage amount and a multiplier that actually scales off power. So he could've dropped that into 40 people running full glass power builds and the only difference would have been that he would have died to retal even faster.

@Israel.7056 said:
I'm disagreeing with the idea that retal disproportionately rewards people running tanky builds or that toning down retal would somehow discourage the use of Minstrel Chronos and Firebrands. It's my understanding that retal damage has a base damage amount and a multiplier that actually scales off power. So he could've dropped that into 40 people running full glass power builds and the only difference would have been that he would have died to retal even faster.

That's a little disingenuous to me. It also scales off of might. If he'd dropped it onto a zerg of full glass power specs then chances are, he'd have at least downed some of them but from what I saw in the video and on the minimap, there were no downs. It isn't really an issue with glassier specs because the classes and builds that tend to pump out, maintain and benefit from retaliation are chronos and firebrands who are usually running full minstrel's (Mediguards are a separate issue). They actually addressed something similar back in 2013 when we still had Plague (R.I.P.) and transformation elites that doubled/tripled stats like power and toughness.

Six years into the game, I'm surprised people can still conjure up the energy to care anymore. That said, if they are going to make some changes, I think lowering the passive damage of bunker builds would be a start.

@Israel.7056 said:
People are going to bring minstrel chronos and firebrands even if retal is entirely removed from the game.

I didn't say they wouldn't but it'd be a start by tuning down retaliation damage; it's one thing to have a tanky comp, it's quite another to be passively punishing glass players who, as it stands, take more damage through retaliation than they themselves put out, and for such little effort. So I have to wonder what it is you're exactly disagreeing with besides a point I didn't make?

I'm disagreeing with the idea that retal disproportionately rewards people running tanky builds or that toning down retal would somehow discourage the use of Minstrel Chronos and Firebrands. It's my understanding that retal damage has a base damage amount and a multiplier that actually scales off power. So he could've dropped that into 40 people running full glass power builds and the only difference would have been that he would have died to retal even faster.

I don't think retal really benefits glassy or tanky builds more in a zerg context, overall I think it just benefits zerging, or rather punishes players for doing a very non-optional part of killing other players, attacking them. Would removing retal solve all problems no, would doing so be good for the game, ye.

There is a lot of opinion going on the OP post so I will just leave the majority as an "I disagree".

Moving on:

Point 1.1
Your solution here is pretty much stop playing GW2 and play a MMo released on the years 2000~2007.
The mix of mobility on the gameplay is the only reason gameplay here is good.
Can't kill a class due to disengaging and exercise of futility? Sorry man that's your opinion there. Your opinion of conditions of victory or defeat, that is.

Linear low-risk, high-reward strategies are good for the game if you don't actually like interacting with your opponent yes.

Point 1.2
I can't help but laugh when I read people making rational arguments about how stealth is bad. Perhaps the most rational a person is the most problem they have with things they can't see.
I don't have anything to add here. This is again a matter of opinion. Some people learned to deal with it, some doesn't.

Stealth by itself isn't even the issue. The issue is stealth always comes together with high mobility. Meaning you can't see them, and they could literally have gone in any direction and far too.

Point 1.3
I can relate that the high burst and active defenses on some classes is something hard to deal with it. But since when Hit&Run tactics are considered an "issue"?
I can't help but read this and think you are playing the wrong game. Or perhaps you have trouble accepting strategies different than yours.

Hit&Run is a linear strategy. It plays out the exact same everytime, you gapclose to your opponent, you use w/e burst combo you have, you either get the kill or0 you teleport/run away, wait for your cds and repeat ad nauseam. They only work on classes slower than you (which depending on the class could be almost all of them). If you think powerful linear strategies with very few counterplay options to be healthy for a game then you might not know what a game actually is.

Point 1.4
I hate ranged damage as well. But all maps were made taking kitting and ranged damage in consideration. A single tree in the way can turn any ranged damage from 20k to zero.
The unblockable part ins clearly a reference to DE.
That can't be helped since the OP is playing an class that's hard countered for.

Your deadeye bias is showing. Unblockable here was primarily aimed at soulbeast, imo their version of it is more annoying, at least the deadeye one is only on one skill, tho imo neither of them should have any unblockable ranged damage. If unblockable damage was reflectable it would imo be less of an issue.

Point 1.5
I can relate.
I could disagree on a few points but I won't disagree that the damage is unhealthy on most classes nowadays.
Or specifically, "YOLO Build" are to common.

Well that's something...

Point 2.0 in a general way
I agree that ANET doesn't seen to give the game proper methods to deal with the Zerg issue.

Point 2.1
That's a game engine limitation.

No it isn't. Siege has a target cap of 50, scourge had a target cap of 20 during PoF beta, just to name a few examples of skills that have/had bigger target caps, game still works for me at least.

Point 2.2
Downed state is a mechanics that's bad with it and worse without it.
Downed state is the only thing that actually stops the PvP to go in a straight full burst direction.
The burst/mobility "Issue" you pointed on point 1 would be even worse if the downed state were to be removed.

It MUST be tweaked for WvW tough. Perhaps making players die faster on downed state? Adding a cooldown time to be ressed? Make the Ress debuff stronger?

Hence why I included both of these issues in the same post? Fixing both at the same time would be the optimal way to go about it.

Point 2.3
Again, opinion.
Tough I am not surprised someone that complained about mobility and burst plays Necro.
I recommend you playing, and I mean a few hundred hours each, other classes and open your mind a little.

???
Did you mean another part? Double duty skills are actually a problem that scourge has more than any other class. There's not even anything about mobility or burst mentioned in this entire secion???

If you're really so concerned about what I have played in WvW, I can tell you all the classes/builds I have played a considersable amount of in WvW. This is of course over various time periods (from the start of HoT) with various metas so keep that in mind. I might not have played each class that I listed here a couple hundred hours, but I'd say at least 50 hours of active WvWing, I did not enjoy playing all of them by any means, but I did, mainly as a learning excercise. They are not listed by playtime.

As an added note: I don't play scourge, I barely even play necro anymore, sometimes some power reaper but not very often. Currently the closest thing I have to a main is Condi Rev, a class with quite a few stunbreaks and okay-ish mobility (when compared to the sane classes). I play many other classes too.

Point 2.4
Classes to support itself in combat like that is one of the design decisions of GW2.
You can make your support more efficient by investing on concentration and healing power, but the skills are always there.
Drawing a line is also bad because Gw2 is not a Trinity game. In the myriad of choices, there is no place to draw a line.

Trinity isn't applicable to WvWvW. What would a "tank" do in WvWvW etc?

The problem isn't dedicated supports, the problem is skills that are powerful enough to use while solo, that also happen to have a bunch of support just slapped on, this leads to exponential power growth, similar to double duty skills. Meaning there's no tradeoff, you run the best "selfish" skill and the best (or at least a good) support skill at the same time.

Point 3.2
Access to stability, stun breakers and Condition clean is one of the many differences between classes and its intentional that some classes have less of some than others.
Also condi meta was terrible.
And yes, I agree that Firebrands AoE condi cleanse pretty much almost make Condi damage useless outside small skirmishes.

The "condi meta" you speak of was a period where less than half of the players played condi. Burst damage was at a very low point, I thoroughly enjoyed playing in it personally, almost every fight was a grindy attrition fight where you got multiple opportunities to outplay your opponent.

I am not saying there shouldn't be a difference in condi clears across classes, I am saying the difference should be smaller, and that group condi clears should as a compensation be weaker. Condi damage shouldn't be completely nullified in bigger fights, nor should some classes have access to almost 0 personal condi clear (power rev prolly being the one with the fewest, used to have even fewer).

Point 3.3
I disagree in this point entirely.
Of the majority of games in the market, GW2 Stunbreaker system is one of the best.
The problem is that you are playing a class with bad access to Stun breakers. Warriors and Thieves for example, don't have a care in the world for CC.

I don't play scourge. Currently the closest thing I have to a main is Condi Rev, a class with quite a few stunbreaks and okay-ish mobility (when compared to the sane classes). I play many other classes too. Whether I struggle with stunlocking or not isn't actually revelant however to whether it's implementation is god awful or not, which it is, diminishing returns would only really affect the situations where you get chain-CCed, it wouldn't somehow make stab or stunbreaks bad, because getting stunned even once is a powerful thing.

TL:DR
I agree in the part that we hate zergs.
I agree that stacking too many players, like supports, in a zerg makes everything run out of control.
I disagree that the current burst meta is bad or that mobility mechanics. Its just a different way to engage on PvP and will prolly change in the future either way.
I agree that damage across the board is absurd. But mostly because the excessive amount of passive and active defenses are making "Yolo" Builds viable. Wich until now wasn't actually possible.

OP should really play other classes besides Scourge tough. It limits your opinion a lot. Gameplay experience changes a lot from class to class and you can't change the game in the visions of a single class.

I don't play scourge these days. Currently the closest thing I have to a main is Condi Rev, a class with quite a few stunbreaks and okay-ish mobility (when compared to the sane classes). I play many other classes too.

@SkyshaAdbinderMoonshard.7026 said:
I don't think retal really benefits glassy or tanky builds more in a zerg context, overall I think it just benefits zerging, or rather punishes players for doing a very non-optional part of killing other players, attacking them. Would removing retal solve all problems no, would doing so be good for the game, ye.

AoE skills are supposed to be the counterplay to multiple stacked enemies, yet the optimal counterplay to AoE effects is to stack more players in tighter blobs, which in turn makes single target effects all but useless (due to heals being AoE and "smart")(especially ones that can be bodyblocked). Outnumbering the enemy is it's own benefit, such a strategy does not also need a 60-90% blanket damage/cc reduction.
My solution is simple, just remove the AoE cap from any offensive skills completely.Main Offender(s): Everyone

Nah, I'm good. You're a regular necro/ele/other class, not a god, you have limit to your magic. If we do away with aoe caps then everyone will just run massive AOE blobs. The stacking of a tight blob is so they survive the already ridiculous number of AOE's that exist.

2.3 Builds with a large number of "double duty" skills.
A great example here would be Scourge (there are other too), which prior to February 06th Patch was my favorite class and main.** After multiple excessive nerfs scourge is still amazing at zerging**, but is now terrible for anything else. The reasons they are great at zerging is because all of their skills are both offensive and defensive at the same time, while many of their skills have a target cap of 10. The dual nature of their skills means that there is never a "bad" time to use them, meaning that while the average person in a zerg might not use the skills optimally, they will be used "good enough" to be effective (Back when Scourge wasn't trash outside of a zerg, I considered playing one optimally outside of a zerg to be one of the harder classes to master, while being mediocre/good enough to be one of the easiest classes(ie a bad Scourge player was still a threat, but there was a lot of room for improvement)). My Solution: Make more of these skills have an option to be either supportive or damaging, for example picking up "Path of Corruption" on Scourge might make f2 corrupt 2 boons like it used to, but no longer convert any conditions (or only convert conditions on yourself). Basically more tradeoffs and less skills that are mediocre at a lot of stuff. This rewards good decision making.Main Offender(s): Scourge, Firebrand, Warrior, Herald

The fact that scourges were "excessively" nerfed but still work as well as they do in zergs should tell you something about the nature of scourge or the nerfs. Either the nerfs weren't as excessive, or scourge was far too powerful. I like your solution though.

TL;DR
This can be summarized to, do something about the burst+reset meta in smallscale and do something about the exponential power growth for bigger groups from low-effort classes.

Not sure what a "low-effort" class is? Is that just a class someone is better at than you? I find scourge to be low-effort (refer to it as a face roll class cause all you have to do is set it up right, roll your face across the keyboard, and watch the bags come in), but it's also true that I just suck at it. Also, can't really say a whole CLASS is low-effort. Support ele is very different than zerker weaver, especially depending on player skill and comfort.

AoE skills are supposed to be the counterplay to multiple stacked enemies, yet the optimal counterplay to AoE effects is to stack more players in tighter blobs, which in turn makes single target effects all but useless (due to heals being AoE and "smart")(especially ones that can be bodyblocked). Outnumbering the enemy is it's own benefit, such a strategy does not also need a 60-90% blanket damage/cc reduction.
My solution is simple, just remove the AoE cap from any offensive skills completely.Main Offender(s): Everyone

Nah, I'm good. You're a regular necro/ele/other class, not a god, you have limit to your magic. If we do away with aoe caps then everyone will just run massive AOE blobs. The stacking of a tight blob is so they survive the already ridiculous number of AOE's that exist.

And everyone isn't already "running massive AoE blobs"? The AoE cap is actually the very reason people "run massive AoE" blobs, because stacking in the AoEs is the best (and easiest) counterplay to them, yet AoEs are the only thing that even tickles a Zerg because they're so stacked. You can't see the problem with that the best counter to AoE is to all stack inside it? Either way removing AoE cap benefits both AoE skills and single target skills.

It hardly means you as a small gorup would win every fight against a blob, but if they play really poorly it means they could get wiped.
Blob stacks>you AoE them>they could actually die from AoEs
Blob spreads>you single target them down>less effective but more effective than single targeting them is now.

2.3 Builds with a large number of "double duty" skills.
A great example here would be Scourge (there are other too), which prior to February 06th Patch was my favorite class and main.** After multiple excessive nerfs scourge is still amazing at zerging**, but is now terrible for anything else. The reasons they are great at zerging is because all of their skills are both offensive and defensive at the same time, while many of their skills have a target cap of 10. The dual nature of their skills means that there is never a "bad" time to use them, meaning that while the average person in a zerg might not use the skills optimally, they will be used "good enough" to be effective (Back when Scourge wasn't trash outside of a zerg, I considered playing one optimally outside of a zerg to be one of the harder classes to master, while being mediocre/good enough to be one of the easiest classes(ie a bad Scourge player was still a threat, but there was a lot of room for improvement)). My Solution: Make more of these skills have an option to be either supportive or damaging, for example picking up "Path of Corruption" on Scourge might make f2 corrupt 2 boons like it used to, but no longer convert any conditions (or only convert conditions on yourself). Basically more tradeoffs and less skills that are mediocre at a lot of stuff. This rewards good decision making.Main Offender(s): Scourge, Firebrand, Warrior, Herald

The fact that scourges were "excessively" nerfed but still work as well as they do in zergs should tell you something about the nature of scourge or the nerfs. Either the nerfs weren't as excessive, or scourge was far too powerful.

Being overpowered in one situation doesn't necessarily mean overpowered in another. But you're right it speaks volume about how bad design "double duty" skills are and how one builds having double friendly (and enemy) target cap can keep them situationally overpowered even with their base power level incredibly low.

I like your solution though.

Thanks

TL;DR
This can be summarized to, do something about the burst+reset meta in smallscale and do something about the exponential power growth for bigger groups from low-effort classes.

Not sure what a "low-effort" class is? Is that just a class someone is better at than you? I find scourge to be low-effort (refer to it as a face roll class cause all you have to do is set it up right, roll your face across the keyboard, and watch the bags come in), but it's also true that I just suck at it. Also, can't really say a whole CLASS is low-effort. Support ele is very different than zerker weaver, especially depending on player skill and comfort.

Low-effort classes (builds is what I mean, not actually classes, I normally use the words interchangeably, my mistake) in this context are classes who in a zerg can't make any bad decisions, because there are none. Ie all/most of the skills are always good to press, meaning you can just faceroll (in a zerg).

Warning wall of text!

I am doing my very best to be concise, but there is a lot of things to discuss.
I would appreciate if you do try to keep responses to this post factual and correctly quote the part you agree/disagree with and why.

The current state of WvW is atrocious. I will go through all (might miss some) of it's problems as someone who plays in a small very organized group of 2-5 people (depending on the day), while also touching problems with running solo and what is currently wrong with zerging.

I will also briefly discuss what would fix these issues. I will try to avoid singling one class out as the cause of all these problems and try to provide as general information as possible. I will try my very best to avoid class balance as this is a subject likely to derail the thread and this thread is not about specific issues but about global game-wide issues, even if some of these issues are partly or fully limited to a subset of the classes.

I will also be listing the main offending classes (sometimes specifying build) for each category, note this is not a call to nerf any particular class, just me pointing out that they are some of the main offenders for one or multiple parts of what makes WvW bad. These could be missing some classes/builds as I might forget them, but the examples are mainly there to illustrate a point.

Low-Risk/High-Reward gameplay

1.1 Builds with access to incredibly high mobility.
Some builds have so much mobility that trying to kill them on most other classes is an excercise in futility, you can make them flee/reset, but you will never actually get the kill, this means that they will keep resetting the fight until they eventually win, be it the 3rd or the 33rd try. This is both frustrating and very poor gameplay as your best option becomes finding somewhere relative safe (generally water/a tower/somewhere with LoS) and wait for them to get bored. These issues are further compounded on by that they are generally the same ones with access to stealths which will be discussed in subsection (1.2) and very high burst (which will be discussed in subsection 1.3)My Solution: Make a lot more of the movement skills require a target so you can't use them to reset. Nerf ones where this is not applicable (1-2 movement options at most w/o a target seems reasonable/class)Main Offender(s): Thieves (all specs), Mirage, Soulbeast, Druid, Warrior (all specs), Revenant (Shiro)

1.2 Builds with good access to stealth.
There is very little counterplay to stealth, you can try to guess where they go, but the odds of that are generally about as good as me picking 3 numbers between 1 and 18 and you trying to guess all 3 (360 degrees to go in, your margin of error is at best 20 degrees, they can change the direction hence the 3 times). Even if you do manage to predict where they go, the builds with access to stealth are generally not slow builds w/o any mobility skills.My Solution: Make stealth give you an unpurgeable version of cripple that prevents you from using movement skills. This would make actually finding the person in stealth rewarding while making it so that when you don't they have at least cleared a lot less distance.Main Offender(s): Thief (all specs), Mirage, Soulbeast, Druid

1.3 Builds with very high burst damage and strong "defenses".
This point is basically a combination of subsection (1.1) and (1.2), but extended to include all active defenses (such as Endure Pain for example). When builds can go for their full burst on you (which can 1 shot you if you don't play counter accordingly (and sometimes even then depending on what build you're running and what build is bursting you). Now if you after surviving their full burst could properly retaliate this would be far less of a problem, but this burst is generally followed up by chaining several mobility skills together with using invulnerabilities (or stealth or similar). Meaning that the sequence goes something like Burst>You survive>Reset fight>10 sec later>Burst>You Survive>Reset Fight>Wait 10 sec>Repeat. This is less of an issue when you yourself play the kind of class/build that can do this, but for those of us who don't enjoy burst>reset gameplay there are very few viable options.My Solution: Implement my suggestions from subsection (1.1) and (1.2) and reduce the damage of the burstiest skills across the board (especially ones without a clear tell)Main Offender(s): Thieves (all specs), Mirages, Soulbeasts, Warriors, Holosmith, Fresh Air Ele variants

1.4 Builds that combine some previous points with long range.
Once again the issue here is counterplay, the builds that can combine these things also generally do the bulk of their burst with unblockable, which removes yet another counterplay option, leaving LoS as the only real counterplay option. These builds are in my opinion not more of a problem in even numbered fights than similar builds w/o range but their range makes very oppressive when outnumbering the enemy.My Solution: Ranged attacks should never be unblockable (or unblockable shouldn't affect projectile destruction/reflection). Ranged attacks should either be similar to that of staff elementalist (slow and telegraphed) or do much lower damage, there should be no 15k unblockable attacks.Main Offender(s): Deadeyes, Soulbeasts, Revenant (Hammer+Shiro, so to a lesser degree than the others)

1.5 Overall Damage Proliferation
This point isn't targeted at any specific class or issue but rather at the fact that the game has seen overall damage go up, meaning fights become more burst, less attrition. In my opinion attrition based or "grindy" fights are more healthy for a game as they give each player more possibilities to play good/bad meaning that they measure "skill" in a better way.My Solution: This problem is often due to a lot of stacked +x% damage modifiers, reducing the number of these in the game would be a very good startMain Offender(s): Game-wide issue

Arbitrary benefits from zerging
There are several mechanics that currently benefit low skilled "blobs" more so than numbers simply should. I do believe that having more numbers should be an advantage, yet having mechanics that reward it beyond just that you have more "total hp" and more "total dps" etc is poor design. Mechanics that do this are typically mechanics where there is a very low amount of "skill" needed to perform the mechanic optimally, or close to optimally.

The mechanics that currently reward this is:
2.1 The AoE cap on damaging skills
AoE skills are supposed to be the counterplay to multiple stacked enemies, yet the optimal counterplay to AoE effects is to stack more players in tighter blobs, which in turn makes single target effects all but useless (due to heals being AoE and "smart")(especially ones that can be bodyblocked). Outnumbering the enemy is it's own benefit, such a strategy does not also need a 60-90% blanket damage/cc reduction.
My solution is simple, just remove the AoE cap from any offensive skills completely.Main Offender(s): Everyone

2.2 The way the downstate and ressing works vastly promotes bigger groups.
Ressing is something which you can't do better (except for Mercy runes/ressing traits) except for just having more people do it, it is also in the current state way way too fast to ress 1 player, even without mercy runes/similar, but when there is several mercy runes using players the downstate becomes what you really fight against as everyone you down almost instantly gets ressed. My Solution: for this would be to cut ressing speed by 50-75%, remove ressing traits from the game and remove mercy runes from the game and in addition to this add a debuff on people currently getting stomped that reduced their "healing gained" by 100%. Several/all downstate skills should be nerfed to roughly the level of the Necromancer/Revenant ones (easily counterable, only 1 interrupt, can't interrupt people with stab or interrupt through blind) or completely remove all downstate skills beyond 1 and 4.Main Offender(s): Druids, Scrappers, Guardians, Mercy Runes

2.3 Builds with a large number of "double duty" skills.
A great example here would be Scourge (there are other too), which prior to February 06th Patch was my favorite class and main. After multiple excessive nerfs scourge is still amazing at zerging, but is now terrible for anything else. The reasons they are great at zerging is because all of their skills are both offensive and defensive at the same time, while many of their skills have a target cap of 10. The dual nature of their skills means that there is never a "bad" time to use them, meaning that while the average person in a zerg might not use the skills optimally, they will be used "good enough" to be effective (Back when Scourge wasn't trash outside of a zerg, I considered playing one optimally outside of a zerg to be one of the harder classes to master, while being mediocre/good enough to be one of the easiest classes(ie a bad Scourge player was still a threat, but there was a lot of room for improvement)). My Solution: Make more of these skills have an option to be either supportive or damaging, for example picking up "Path of Corruption" on Scourge might make f2 corrupt 2 boons like it used to, but no longer convert any conditions (or only convert conditions on yourself). Basically more tradeoffs and less skills that are mediocre at a lot of stuff. This rewards good decision making.Main Offender(s): Scourge, Firebrand, Warrior, Herald

2.4 The exponential power growth of multiple players due to supportive non-supports
A lot of optimal single target "buffs" or "defensives" have an equally strong AoE part, for example, "Healing Turret", "Sand Cascade", "Leap of Resolve" just to name a few skills from various classes are all abilities you would use while playing their respective class solo, that makes them very difficult to tune correctly as they must be strong enough to use without any allies, but while doing 5x as much as "usual" they become overpowered. AoE healing and support builds are not at all in themselves a problem, I personally find that they are part of what makes WvW interesting, what is a problem is when every "offensive" build runs with several supportive skills by "accident", ie skills they would be using even if they only affected the caster. My Solution: The lines between support builds and non-support builds should be clearer, for example a nerf targeted at "Healing Turret" might include removing the personal heal on it (reducing it's self healing by 50%) or making the second part of the healing self-exclusive, now I am not saying "Healing Turret" in particular does or doesn't needs nerfing, it is just a good example of that kind of skill.Main Offender(s): Scourge, Firebrand, Guardian, Herald, Renegade, Scrapper

2.5 Retalation
I originally while writing this did not include this point. Mainly because it did not cross my mind. But after reading several replies I realize that this deserves to make the list. This boon can sometimes be doing 60% of the damage you take (according to my damage meter's incoming damage)(or more in extreme examples). There is no counterplay beyond "don't attack". My Solution: Redesign the buff completely, don't even keep the concept.Main Offenders: Guards and Chronomancers are the ones that give the boon out the most, but the sources of it aren't the problem.

Various uncategorized issues
I will here write issues which I do not feel adequately fit into other categories

3.1 Resistance
This boon is poor design. I assume it was intended as a way of countering conditions in a similar vein that protection counters power damage. It however does so far too well, if specced for it, you can have a ridiculous uptime on this boon, especially in a group, blanket immunity to one entire type of damage does not seem like good design.My Solution: Keep the immunity to impairing conditions and make it reduce condition damage by 33-50%, adjust availability accordingly.Main Offender(s): Firebrands, Mallyx Revenant

3.2 Access to condition cleanses
A large majority of the condi clears in this game are AoE, this means that the larger the enemy force is, the worse condition builds become compared to power builds. I have long been of the opinion that group condition clears are too strong, while for most classes, personal condition clears are too weak (this used to be a bigger problem and now doesn't affect as many classes).My Solution: Nerf some of the more spammable AoE condi clears, while buffing personal condi clears.Main Offender(s): (Too much Group): Firebrand, Scourge, Heal Scrapper, Main Offender(s): (Too little personal). Necromancer (Mainly Power Variants), Revenant (Power Variants),

3.3 Excessive CC-spam
This is more evident when outnumbered, but can be seen in equal fights too. CC effects are generally needed for a game, however most games have some mechanic that prevents you from being CC-locked. Being CC-locked is a situation where you get caught in a loop of CC effects until you die, generally because your stunbreak is on cooldown, this is a bigger problem for some classes than others.My Solution: Introduce a diminishing returns effect on CC, ie everytime you get CCed you either get a few seconds of immunity, or CC-effects applied to you afterwards have a reduced duration, how to make this work with the various lengths of CC effects is the hard part, but something along the lines of the longer your previous CC-effects were and the more of them was applied to you, the more powerful the diminishing returns. Adding more stunbreaks/sources of stability for problem classes is also an option, but imo a more shortsighted and more band-aidy one.Main Offender(s): Spellbreakers, Holosmith, Chronomancer, Large Fights

TL;DR
This can be summarized to, do something about the burst+reset meta in smallscale and do something about the exponential power growth for bigger groups from low-effort classes.

tbh your issue is

zerg play in wvw following classes are a issue

fb scourge rev warrior ele

roaming part of wvw

thief warrior mesmer ranger holo

i mean yes WvW has problems, but its not the classes its Anet the game is so pumped up right, yes it works nice in pve but in WvW it doesnt u see they can insta increase all mobs HP or toughness to scale dmg out just right. you cant do this in WvW if we increase every1 HP certain classes will still be hit by a nerf stick.

and go on. anet needs to go back to basic's which was never really balanced either but far better then what we have now and start working from there towards PoF.
but never gonna happen cus this is WvW so who cares

@iKeostuKen.2738 said:
I would like to see the removal or down tonage of Ferocity. As well as a range nerf on retaliation to only effect melee attacks both added to the list. Getting hit from across the map cause some shmoe with retal decided to step on one of my traps is very unrewarding and randomly puts me in combat.

WvW has many problems, but if they had to change things that you mentioned...they would need to create a whole new game.
Cool that you tried to write everything what annoys you, but it's not gonna work.

@Usagi.4835 said:
Thought of another idea. Get rid of Iron Hide and Dragon Banner. Neither of those should be in WvW.

Agreed. And invuln walls.

Ye, all of these are awful, I just didn't feel like they really impact WvW enough to warrant listing, but PvEing for like 5 minutes just to kill some lord or having to wait out invuln walls is super boring. This was more about combat issues, I could write an equally long post about how awful sieging is in this game, but at least for me, even if they made sieging even worse it would never really cause me to drop the game, while if the combat got any worse than it is now I prolly would.

@Widmo.3186 said:
WvW has many problems, but if they had to change things that you mentioned...they would need to create a whole new game.
Cool that you tried to write everything what annoys you, but it's not gonna work.

Arguable, most (not all) of these "fixes" are rather low effort to do (removing AoE caps, nerfing downstate, nerfing resistance etc) some are medium effort (the ones related to balance) and some are harder (the ones related to class design)

@Junkpile.7439 said:
If every kitten place wouldn't be full of red circles game could be actually playable.

Imo a big part of this problem would be solved by cleaning up the visual effects of some of the circles and adding better ways to differentiate between them. It can in some scenarios be very hard to know exactly what fields you're standing in, as a lot of the red circles can safely be more or less ignored, while other really can't be ignored.

@iKeostuKen.2738 said:
I would like to see the removal or down tonage of Ferocity. As well as a range nerf on retaliation to only effect melee attacks both added to the list. Getting hit from across the map cause some shmoe with retal decided to step on one of my traps is very unrewarding and randomly puts me in combat.

Works both ways
Stepping into a trap you placed minutes ago.....

Thats why there called traps lol. Not only does it put us into combat, it takes us out of stealth.

@Junkpile.7439 said:
If every kitten place wouldn't be full of red circles game could be actually playable.

Imo a big part of this problem would be solved by cleaning up the visual effects of some of the circles and adding better ways to differentiate between them. It can in some scenarios be very hard to know exactly what fields you're standing in, as a lot of the red circles can safely be more or less ignored, while other really can't be ignored.

??

You want to "clean" the visual effects by adding more information on the screen? Really?

@Junkpile.7439 said:
If every kitten place wouldn't be full of red circles game could be actually playable.

Imo a big part of this problem would be solved by cleaning up the visual effects of some of the circles and adding better ways to differentiate between them. It can in some scenarios be very hard to know exactly what fields you're standing in, as a lot of the red circles can safely be more or less ignored, while other really can't be ignored.

??

You want to "clean" the visual effects by adding more information on the screen? Really?

"Adding better ways to differentiate between them." can also mean making certain fields less visible (the incredibly low impact ones mainly, compared to other fields), different colors for different fields (to make it clearer which ones are which) and/or making the more "dangerous" ones have clearer animations, like how the spellbreaker bubble is very visible, just as a few examples of how one could make it cleaner by adding "more information".

@Junkpile.7439 said:
If every kitten place wouldn't be full of red circles game could be actually playable.

Imo a big part of this problem would be solved by cleaning up the visual effects of some of the circles and adding better ways to differentiate between them. It can in some scenarios be very hard to know exactly what fields you're standing in, as a lot of the red circles can safely be more or less ignored, while other really can't be ignored.

??

You want to "clean" the visual effects by adding more information on the screen? Really?

"Adding better ways to differentiate between them." can also mean making certain fields less visible (the incredibly low impact ones mainly, compared to other fields), different colors for different fields (to make it clearer which ones are which) and/or making the more "dangerous" ones have clearer animations, like how the spellbreaker bubble is very visible, just as a few examples of how one could make it cleaner by adding "more information".

We had that same discussion years ago. The problem is that it's "hard" to create a filter on what is important and what is not class by class.

Sometimes having a different ring for AoE skills that deal more damage seens obvious. But at the same time, sometimes that AoE skill that don't deal any damage can have more everlasting consequences if not dodged that the pure damage ones.

That said, having a different red ring doesn't stop people from running inside Scourge Shades. They die and complain as if the pulsing red circle wasn't enough feedback.

@Junkpile.7439 said:
If every kitten place wouldn't be full of red circles game could be actually playable.

Imo a big part of this problem would be solved by cleaning up the visual effects of some of the circles and adding better ways to differentiate between them. It can in some scenarios be very hard to know exactly what fields you're standing in, as a lot of the red circles can safely be more or less ignored, while other really can't be ignored.

??

You want to "clean" the visual effects by adding more information on the screen? Really?

"Adding better ways to differentiate between them." can also mean making certain fields less visible (the incredibly low impact ones mainly, compared to other fields), different colors for different fields (to make it clearer which ones are which) and/or making the more "dangerous" ones have clearer animations, like how the spellbreaker bubble is very visible, just as a few examples of how one could make it cleaner by adding "more information".

We had that same discussion years ago. The problem is that it's "hard" to create a filter on what is important and what is not class by class.

Sometimes having a different ring for AoE skills that deal more damage seens obvious. But at the same time, sometimes that AoE skill that don't deal any damage can have more everlasting consequences if not dodged that the pure damage ones.

That said, having a different red ring doesn't stop people from running inside Scourge Shades. They die and complain as if the pulsing red circle wasn't enough feedback.

Well at least different coloring based on Hard-CC-field>Boon Removal/Corruption field>Soft-CC-field>Damaging fields, prioritized in that order (possibly swapping Soft-CC and damaging or basing it on what soft-cc it is (ie blind/chill/immob has priority, cripple doesnt), can obviously be refined a bit) (ie a field that does both Hard-CC and boon removal shows up as a CC-field), would be a lot better than the current state. I don't consider this a major issue tbh (most of the time the fields are stacked enough that there is just one or two points to avoid), but it definitively isn't in a good state.

@steki.1478 said:
Even in small scale, there's not many classes that could stun lock or they have quite telegraphed animations. Most stun breaks also provide either stability, evade or stealth, which can prevent stun locking and there's even passive procs for those on every class.

Telegraphed skills are well and good while you still have evades, and not all stuns are heavily telegraphed either, the problem with them is also that once you do get stunned, you can't evade the next one, or the one after that etc, CC in itself is not too strong or even that poorly designed. "Most stun breaks also provide either stability, evade or stealth" Make that most good stunbreaks provide stability, evade or stealth, which shows the problem with the CC system perfectly imo, if a stunbreak is just a stunbreak, it might aswell not be there when fighting multiple enemies. There's not passive procs for each class. Necromancer, Revenant and Mesmer just off the top of my head dont have proc that stunbreaks them.

When fighting outnumbered you either win with skills or lose to numbers, there's not much philosophy. Playing builds with no stun breaks or not having a designated support in that situation doesnt make CC skills any stronger, it just means that your composition/build lacks basic pvp tools, which are mobility, damage mitigation, stun breaks and cleanses.

What's up with making statements that don't even have a meaning at all (your first statement)?
Anyway, I do not play w/o a stunbreak or as much stab as my class allows, I do play with good support players, I do not have major issues dealing with stunlock more frequently than could be expected in each given situation. Yet when it does happen, it shows just how flawed the system is. Can you honestly think of any way in which the combat system would be worse if CC had diminishing returns?

When you're under focus fire on top of stun lock, you'll die in 3 seconds whether the CC lasts 3 seconds or 10 seconds. If less amount of players attack you it means that there's less CC thrown at you, which is easier to break and escape, but if there's more than 3-4 people on you, that means you're practically dead, stunned or not.

Now let's assume you play some tanky build like spellbreaker or support tempest/firebrand/scrapper. You get stunned for 5 seconds and you have no breaks available, but you manage to survive due to instant heal/block/cleanse or damage mitigation skills/passive procs (elixir s, defy/endure pain and similar). With DR on CC you'll be basically invincible since enemy wasted most of their burst while you were CC-ed, but you still survived, meaning that your group will wreck their since they dont have skills to fire back at you or you'll just keep your party at full hp since they have no ways to kill you anymore.

Not true. I play spellbreaker with full passive defenses, active stunbreaks, and tanky gear, and I still get chain-stunned and bombed to death. If the passives are ticking, they are instantly overwritten, the active stunbreak clicks and is immediately overwritten by yet more cc. This happens when on tag, in the frontline, just from the blob's well-spread out (meaning you can double-dodge and still be in the aoe) bomb. Double guards in every party, they die too. CC and boonstrip overwhelms stabs/stunbreaks right now.

@steki.1478 said:
Even in small scale, there's not many classes that could stun lock or they have quite telegraphed animations. Most stun breaks also provide either stability, evade or stealth, which can prevent stun locking and there's even passive procs for those on every class.

Telegraphed skills are well and good while you still have evades, and not all stuns are heavily telegraphed either, the problem with them is also that once you do get stunned, you can't evade the next one, or the one after that etc, CC in itself is not too strong or even that poorly designed. "Most stun breaks also provide either stability, evade or stealth" Make that most good stunbreaks provide stability, evade or stealth, which shows the problem with the CC system perfectly imo, if a stunbreak is just a stunbreak, it might aswell not be there when fighting multiple enemies. There's not passive procs for each class. Necromancer, Revenant and Mesmer just off the top of my head dont have proc that stunbreaks them.

When fighting outnumbered you either win with skills or lose to numbers, there's not much philosophy. Playing builds with no stun breaks or not having a designated support in that situation doesnt make CC skills any stronger, it just means that your composition/build lacks basic pvp tools, which are mobility, damage mitigation, stun breaks and cleanses.

What's up with making statements that don't even have a meaning at all (your first statement)?
Anyway, I do not play w/o a stunbreak or as much stab as my class allows, I do play with good support players, I do not have major issues dealing with stunlock more frequently than could be expected in each given situation. Yet when it does happen, it shows just how flawed the system is. Can you honestly think of any way in which the combat system would be worse if CC had diminishing returns?

When you're under focus fire on top of stun lock, you'll die in 3 seconds whether the CC lasts 3 seconds or 10 seconds. If less amount of players attack you it means that there's less CC thrown at you, which is easier to break and escape, but if there's more than 3-4 people on you, that means you're practically dead, stunned or not.

Now let's assume you play some tanky build like spellbreaker or support tempest/firebrand/scrapper. You get stunned for 5 seconds and you have no breaks available, but you manage to survive due to instant heal/block/cleanse or damage mitigation skills/passive procs (elixir s, defy/endure pain and similar). With DR on CC you'll be basically invincible since enemy wasted most of their burst while you were CC-ed, but you still survived, meaning that your group will wreck their since they dont have skills to fire back at you or you'll just keep your party at full hp since they have no ways to kill you anymore.

Not true. I play spellbreaker with full passive defenses, active stunbreaks, and tanky gear, and I still get chain-stunned and bombed to death. If the passives are ticking, they are instantly overwritten, the active stunbreak clicks and is immediately overwritten by yet more cc. This happens when on tag, in the frontline, just from the blob's well-spread out (meaning you can double-dodge and still be in the aoe) bomb. Double guards in every party, they die too. CC and boonstrip overwhelms stabs/stunbreaks right now.

In that situation your dps classes are not putting enough counter pressure or your commander is not positioned properly. It's a team effort, if it works for enemy it can work for you.

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Froggo himself

@BlueMelody.6398 said:
Not true. I play spellbreaker with full passive defenses, active stunbreaks, and tanky gear, and I still get chain-stunned and bombed to death. If the passives are ticking, they are instantly overwritten, the active stunbreak clicks and is immediately overwritten by yet more cc. This happens when on tag, in the frontline, just from the blob's well-spread out (meaning you can double-dodge and still be in the aoe) bomb. Double guards in every party, they die too. CC and boonstrip overwhelms stabs/stunbreaks right now.

Would be interesting to see a video of this happening to you so we could get a better sense of exactly what happened.